The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-10-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
forbidden Honey" the Theme Of
ON Interesting Discourse.

ssForbidden Hcney'' the Theme Of
On Interesting Discourse.
The Various Aliurins Pitfalls Which May
be Included - the Category. and tho
Tho Moral Ruin They Lead to-
Safety only In Obedience.
For the subject of recent sermon at the
Brooklyn Tabernacle, Rev. T. Dewitt
Talmags took "Forbidden Honey" the
text being:
ibid but taste lit.le honey with the end Of
! the rod that was in my hand, and, 10, must
/ die-L Samuel xie., q
! DR.. Talmage said: The honey bee is a
| most ingenious architect, a Christopher
| Wren among insects, a geometer drawing
hexagons and pentagons, a freebooter
robbing the fields Of pollen and aroma, a
woudrUus cresture of God whose
b geography, written by Huber and Swami
meridian, is an enchantment for any lover
of nature. Virgil celebrated the bee in
his fable of Aris.eus, and Moses, and
Samuel, and David, and Solomon, and
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and st. John used
the delicacies of bee manufacture as a
Bible symbol. A miracle Of formation is
the bee; five eyes, two tongues, the outer
| having a sheath of protection hairs on all
sides of its tiny body TO brush up the
! particles of flowers, its fight so straight
/ that all the world knows Of the bee line.
The honey comb is a palace such as no
one but God could plan, and the honey bee
| construct; its cells sometimes q
dormitory, and sometimes a store
house, aud sometimes a cemetery. These
winged toilers fest make eight strips OF
| wax, and by their antennn, which are to
them hammer, and ct;sel, and square, and
! piumb-iine. fashion them for use. Two
| aud two; these workers shape the wall. III
an accident happen they put up but
| .rs-ses CT extra beams to remedy the dam
age When about the year 1.16 an insect,
| before unknown, in the night time attack
| ed the bee.hives all over Europe. and the
| mcn who owaed them were in vain trying
| TO plan some thing to keep out the III.
vadcr that was the terror of the bee-hives
| of the continent. il was found that every
/ where the bees had arranged for their
own protection, and built before their
| honeycombs en- especial wall of wax with
port-ho,e through which the bees might
| 20 to and fro, bat not large enough to ad-
int the winged combatant, called the
| sphinx atropos
Do Won know that the swarming of tho
bees is diviuely directed? The mother bee
/ starts for a new home. and because of this
| the other bees of the hive get into some
! excitement, which raises the heat of the
| hive some four degrees. 'and they must
| die unless they leave their heated apart
| ments, and they follow the mother bee
| and alight on the branch of tree,
ard cling 70 each other and hold on until
| a committee of two or three have explored
| the region and found the hollow of a tree
| or rock not far Off from stream of water,
ard they here set up a new colony and
ply their aromatic industries, and give
themselves to the manufacture OF the sac
charine edible. But who can tell the
chemistry of that mixture of sweetness,
part of it the very life of the bee and part
Of it the life of the fields:
Plenty of this luscious product was
hanging in the woods of Breth- aven dur
ing the time of Saul and Jonathan. Their
army was in pursuit of an enemy that by
Gods command must be exterminated.
The soldiery were positively forbidden to
stop to eat any thing until the work was
done. If they disobeyed they were &C.
cursed. Coming through the woods they
found place where the bees had been
busy-a great honey manufactory. Honey
gathered in the hollow of trees until it
had overfiowed upon the ground in great
profusion of sweetness AL the army
obeyed orders and touched it not, save
Jonathan, and he, not knowing the mill
tary order about abstinence, dipped the
end Of q stick he had in his hand
into the candied liquid, and as, yell
low, and brown, and tempting, it gIowed
on the end of the stick, he put i. to his
mouth and ate the honey. Judgment fell
upon him, and but for special Intervention
he would have been slain. In my text
Jonathan announces his awful mistake:
did hut taste little honey with the end
Of the rod that was il my hand, and, 10, / must
die
Alas, what multitudes of people in all
ages have been damaged by forbidden
honey-by which mean temptation-de-
licious and attractive, but damaging and
destructive.
Literature, fascinating but beautiful,
comes in this category. Where one good,
honest, healthful book is read now there
are one hundred made up of rhetorical
trash consumed with avidity. When the
boy on the cars comes through with pile
of publications, look over the titles and
notice that nine out Of ten of the books are
depicting and injurious. ALI the way
from New York to Chicago or New Or
leans, notice that Objectionable books
dominate. Taste for pure literature is
poisoned by this scum of the publishing
house. Every book in which sin triumphs
over virtue, or in which glamour is
thrown over dissipation, respect for
the marriage institution and less
adherence for the paramour, is a depres-
sion Of your own moral character. The
book binding may be attractive, and the
plot dramatic and startling, and the style
Of writing sweet as the honey that Jona-
than dipped up with his rod, but your
best interests forbid it, your moral safety
forbids it, your God forbids it. and one
taste Of it may lead to such bad results
that you may have to say at the close of
the experiment, or at the close of mis-
improved lifetime:
did but taste littlehoney with the rod that
was in my hand. and, 10. must die.
Corrupt literature is doing more to-day
for the disruption of domestic life than
any other cause. ElopeInents, marital in
trigues, sly correspondence, fictitious
names given at post-office windows, clam
destine meetings in parks, aud at ferry
gates, and in hotel parlors, and conjugal
perjuries are among the damnable results.
When a woman, young or old, gets her
head thoroughly stuffed with the modern
novel she is in appalling peril. But some
one will say: 1.-THE heroes are so adroitly
knavish, and the persons SO bswitching-
ly untrue, and the turn of the story
SO exquisite, and all the charac-
tiers SO enrapturing, can no: